


absence

by king_edmund



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: (j lo voice) motherhood is a mental illness, Background Anakin/Padme, Female Obi-Wan Kenobi, Freeform, Gen, background obiwan/quinlan, in which. we ruminate. on child separation. :|
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23921770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/king_edmund/pseuds/king_edmund
Summary: in which obiwan is a woman and has to take a leave of absence
Comments: 11
Kudos: 129





	absence

"I'd rather we not tell Anakin," she says quietly, sitting up and reaching for her tabards. 

Healer Che looks at her. "Deception is not the Jedi way," she says testily. "Is this not a valuable learning opportunity for your Padawan?"

Obi-Wan fastens her tabards and stands, tugging on her robe. "He will likely..." she sighs, rubs at her eyes. "As a slave he saw many mothers unwillingly separated from their children. I sense he will not be able to overlook the similarities to our practice."

"Because you are unwilling?" Che's voice is unusually soft, and Obi-Wan shakes her head quickly.

"No, I know my duty."

Che continues to stare at Obi-Wan, probing her lightly in the Force. Eventually she nods, and leans back against the wall of the tiny exam room. "How do you propose to keep this from him?"

"There is still time to decide. Perhaps I can go into seclusion, or Anakin can be sent elsewhere. He might benefit from a change in routine."

"You do not think he will see it as a rejection? As an abandonment?"

Obi-Wan gives a wry chuckle. "That is precisely why I think it may be beneficial."

Che rolls her eyes. "Alright then. Would you like me to speak to Master Yoda?"

"No, no, I'll handle the troll," she says with a soft smile. "Thank you, Master Che. I am as always grateful for your counsel."

"Hm. I'll expect you to remember that sentiment next time you try and escape my clutches."

"Anakin," Obi-Wan calls, gently pushing a half-disassembled mouse droid out of the way as she heads to his room. It beeps pathetically, butting against her ankles. "Anakin, I thought I told you to disable these things."

"I'm trying something new with the chassis," he calls, and Obi-Wan pokes her head into his room to find him taking a laser spanner to a second droid, with a third running little circles around him on the floor.

Obi-Wan watches the spectacle, fond and amused despite herself. "Anakin, may I sit?"

"Yeah, yeah," he says, still focused on the droid, gesturing vaguely to the bed.

Obi-Wan perches delicately on the edge. "Anakin, I've been asked to undertake a teaching rotation with the AgCorps on Bandomeer. I won't be leaving for a while yet, but Master Windu has volunteered to take up your training while I'm gone."

Anakin looks up sharply. "I can't go with you?"

Obi-Wan shakes her head. "Not if you want to stay sane. It'll be wretchedly boring. You'll be much better off here."

"It won't be boring if you're there."

"You mean, it won't be boring if I bring you along to cause trouble."

Anakin grins in response, and Obi-Wan can't help but mirror him.

"It won't be long, just a few months--"

"A few months!" Anakin sets the droid down with a clang. "You're leaving me for months?"

"One day you'll leave me for good," Obi-Wan counters, but it doesn't land quite right. Anakin scowls, and Obi-Wan sighs. "Look at this as a chance to impress the council, to show Master Windu the Jedi you've become. I'm confident you will do well without me, for a little while at least."

Anakin stares down at the droid in his lap. "Did you ask for this assignment?"

Obi-Wan hesitates. She doesn't want to lie to Anakin, but she can't bear to hurt him unnecessarily. "If I wanted to be rid of you, Anakin, I would say so," she settles on. "You are my Padawan, and I take that responsibility seriously. However, we are Jedi, and must do as the Force wills."

"And the Force wills you to leave me?" He looks up, gaze challenging rather than pitiful.

"Search your feelings, Anakin. Is that what they tell you?" Obi-Wan reaches over and tousles his hair. It needs a trim, soon, curls starting to fall into his eyes. "The Force works in mysterious ways, and," she adds with a smile, "absence does make the heart grow fonder."

Anakin rolls his eyes, but doesn't lean away from her touch. "You don't have to be gross about it, Master."

"Oh, do forgive me for offending your delicate sensibilities, my very young apprentice." Obi-Wan stands, eyeing the mess around them. "Tidy this nonsense, and we'll go out for latemeal."

* * *

Obi-Wan lays a hand over her belly, just beginning to show under her tunics. "Funny, that I should return to Bandomeer," she says, and Yoda harrumphs.

"Repeat, we do, our own paths." The old master knocks his gimer stick against Obi-Wan's shin. "Wallow, we should not."

"Indeed."

After they take her daughter away, Obi-Wan weeps for three days. Only after another month of secluded meditation is she ready to return to Coruscant, to her regular routine. She did not expect to be affected so, having been so clear-minded about her duty, about the will of the Force. But she carries an emptiness back with her to the temple, aching right behind her heart. 

* * *

Obi-Wan knows which child is hers. Master Yoda makes her stand and banter with the children in the dim light of the star chart as if there's not a brown-skinned, six-year-old copy of herself standing just to her left, her little gloved hands wrapped around the hilt of a tiny lightsaber. Obi-Wan does not regret her choice, but the glimpses she catches of her daughter make the emptiness in her chest recede just a little. 

* * *

"Keeping a preslia leaf under your tongue helps," Obi-Wan murmurs to Senator Amidala, who's been looking a little green throughout the committee negotiations. "I can bring you a clipping from the temple gardens," she continues, and Padmé gives her a strange look before nodding her thanks.

"A bath of bitter salt," she suggests quietly, weeks later, helping the Senator out of her speeder in the senate's docking bay. Padmé is showing now, despite her skirts, and clearly uncomfortable sitting down. Again Padmé accepts the advice with a nod and an odd look.

* * *

"Does Obi-Wan have any children?" Padmé asks Anakin as he slowly, gently runs a brush through her hair.

Anakin snorts. "I think I would have noticed that," he says.

"Hmm."

"Why do you ask?" Anakin's hands still on the brush.

Padmé shakes her head gently. "Just something she said, the other day. She seems familiar with my condition."

Anakin shrugs, returning to his task. "My master is wise in all things," he says, with only a hint of irony.

* * *

Obi-Wan can see the circles under Anakin's eyes, the slight tremor of his hands. His fear is almost tangible, as is his distraction. "You have nothing to fear," she tells him, a gentle hand on his arm. "You must focus your energy on winning the war, now," she says, smiling. Anakin nods, tersely, but does not seem to take her comfort to heart.

* * *

"Anakin does have reason to fear," Obi-Wan finds herself saying, standing in the doorway to the Senator's apartments.

That same strange look crosses Padmé's face, and she steps back. "Why don't you come in, General?"

Obi-Wan acquiesces, sits where the Senator directs her, takes the tea she's offered.

"What does Anakin have to fear?" Padmé asks, voice calm and clear, and Obi-Wan looks up from her cup, meets her eyes.

"You can never name Anakin as the father," she says. "He is--you know about the prophecy, you know how powerful he is. The Council will take your children, if given the slightest chance."

Padmé sits back sharply, a hand on her belly. "They would never. I would never--"

"We have been more than decimated, in this war. Our founding charter with the Republic allows for the temple to claim any child that shows potential to become a Jedi, and I can guarantee the Council will take full advantage of that decree in the years to come."

"But you are on the Council," Padmé protests. Then, as Obi-Wan gathers herself to answer, Padmé continues, in a soft, strange voice, "Do you have children of your own, General?"

"You mean besides Anakin?" Obi-Wan's attempt at levity falls flat. "I--" she hesitates, and then remembers her resolve, to keep Anakin from further misery. "A daughter. She's nine, she'll be a Padawan soon."

"What's her name?"

Obi-Wan shakes her head. "I don't know. I've only seen her in passing. I gave her up the same day I gave her life. It was my duty, and the Force's will." Obi-Wan turns her cup in her hands. "But Anakin would not see it that way, and neither would you. He could not bear it."

"You are betraying the Order," Padmé says, with an air of realization. "But why not tell Anakin this directly?"

"He is not receptive to my advice, at the moment. And I know what it will look like, to him, how we--how I never will know my child. Anakin's children must be born free."

"Like your daughter wasn't?" Padmé's voice is sharper now, as she puts the full picture together.

"We all may leave the Order if we please, at any time." Obi-Wan sets her cup on the table and stands. "Please heed my warning. This war will end soon, and with it the secrecy chaos brings."

* * *

Obi-Wan walks through the temple in a daze, the Force screaming pain-agony-betrayal in her very bones. She notes, absently, the corpse of the little togruta from Yoda's lightsaber class, all those years ago, and she freezes in place. All around her are children, no more than ten years old, almost Padawans but not quite, the same age she first saw Anakin. Obi-Wan takes a step, turns slightly, kneels.

"I never knew her name," Obi-Wan says, her voice hoarse and raw. She brushes a few red curls off the girl's forehead, closes her glassy blue eyes.

"Let go of her, you did." Yoda rests a hand on her back. "Move on, we must."

* * *

"You would have stolen them from me," Anakin screams, wretched, cut to pieces. "This was the only way!"

Obi-Wan feels cold, surrounded by glowing lava. Maybe it was for the best, she thinks blankly, Anakin cutting her daughter down. She failed so absolutely with him, as Yoda did with Dooku, as Qui-Gon did with Xanatos. Maybe it was time for their line to end. Even Quinlan fell, in the end. What hope was there for the child? "I would have stood between your child and the whole of the Order. I loved you, Anakin. I could never betray you so."

"Liar!" Anakin screams, and Obi-Wan can bear his pain no longer, striding forward to sever the head from his ruined torso. She waves a trembling hand, consigning Anakin's mangled corpse to the lava flow, the nearest thing to a pyre she can give him. 

**Author's Note:**

> womanhood™, huh?


End file.
